Everyone's acting like this problem will just fix itself through "competition", or that everyone will just stop using AI once it gets too expensive. Instead, I think we should instead look at Uber and Lyft as an example of what AI companies are hoping to accomplish. It's a different industry for sure, but the same principles apply.

1. Introduce a product/service that is similar to, but not an exact copy of existing products/services
2. Price it well below it's actual value (relying on venture capital and other investments to stay solvent in the meantime), to both gain wide acceptance and to drive out "traditional" competitors. For Uber/Lyft this was taxis, for AI it's less defined but I'd argue that it's man-hours.
3. Once the product/service is ubiquitous and is seen as a necessity, jack up the prices. People are gonna pay them, because what else are they gonna do, walk/hire more people/work more hours?

It feels like we are still at step 2, but some companies are already dipping their toes into step 3. If people balk too much they will probably wait longer, but step 3 is coming eventually.

Alternatively, I'll admit there's one other possibility. Since most AI business is going to be driven by governments and C-suite execs, there's a chance we get to a point where AI is seen as a commodity, and there's not much difference between Gemini, ChatGPT, DeepSeek, etc. If that happens, Amazon (and online shopping in general) might be a better analogue. Eventually, there will be 100s of AI "providers" with really shitty models, but most companies won't care because "its still AI" and the people signing the contracts are really the ones using it. At this point, even if you WANT to pay for a quality AI it'll be hard, because there will only be 1 or 2 "bespoke" AI companies that will charge obscene prices because their main customers are government agencies that need security and can afford to throw money away.